Class September 20, 2006

I want to thank Andy for grabbing the camera and taking these shots.
Last night was a big class, with 21 people including me. We still got everyone through 5 games, separate from the warm-up exercises.

These pictures don't capture everyone, but I picked out 6 that I think represent the class pretty well.

This was a panel of knitting experts. The players are Allegra, Ben, Marika, Scott (one of the two), and Neil who played the MC. They had a pretty good range of characters, although I think the favorite was Slash (Scott), a parolee who made his knitting needles from toothbrushes in prison.

What was wonderful about this scene was how all the players kept endowing an event that had been offered in the initial introductions by Mary Beth (Marika). There was a horrible knitting accident in 1998. Rather than focusing on the external event, they made it affect each other in an immediate way. Lot's of feelings and support. Nice.

The second panel consisted of experts on snowflakes. Scott (the other one), Diana, Sharon, and Eric were experts, and Jim served as MC. I think Julie Langsrom (Sharon) from Minnesota ("don't you know") was the best played character since she interacted enthusiatically with everyone. But Starshine Zephyr (Eric), who was searching for his personal snowflake, was quite memorable.

We don't have a shot of the third group since Andy was in that one (oops, flaw in the system).

This is the fourth panel of experts. Mark, Rosey, Brian, and Karla played experts on lollipops. Allegra was the MC, although she didn't make it into the shot. Mark is explaining how his character survived a horrible lollipop accident.

Now we have a couple of shots from the Irish Drinking Songs. I don't remember the topic of this one, but Victoria, Ben, Allegra, Patricia, Karla, and Jim were setting the bar pretty high for the following groups.

Here, Rosey, Scott, Scott (yeah, both of them), Lisee (oh man, I hope that's spelled right - I'm already sorry for screwing up the pronunciation of her name the whole night), and Teri. Somehow, I had the 4 brand new players teamed together for the song. Luckily, Teri served as an anchor. They all did great, especially for the first time.

Actually, the new players were great all night. ALL of them were quick to jump up on stage when given the opportunity. ALL of them actively participated in the scenes without overwhelming them. I've been pretty impressed with the caliber of new players coming to the workshop.

This last shot is from one of the Entrances and Exits games we played at the end of the night. The setting in the shot is a police station, and a police officer (Patricia) is trying to get the confessed murderer (Teri) back to her cell. Another officer is off stage (Lisee), and the interrogating police sergeant (Scott) was basking in his good police work.